DESCRIPTION: (Adapted from the authors' abstract.) The proposed experimental study on social support, stress, and occupied in caregivers of children with perinatal AIDS is designed to test the effect of an intervention that is aimed at mobilizing the caregiver's social support network to effect problem solving and a second intervention that combines social support intervention with respite care. Both interventions will be implemented using the case management approach with respite care. Outcome measures include social support, stress, and coping. The objectives for the study are: (1) to determine caregivers' problems and social support resources; (2) to measure caregiver stress, caregiver coping, and caregiver social support; (3) to test the effect of a social support intervention on caregivers' social support, stress, and coping; (4) to test the effect of a social support/respite intervention on caregivers' social support, stress, and coping; and (5) to compare the effect of a social support intervention to a social support respite intervention on caregivers' social support, stress, and coping. The study variables are organized around three central concepts (stress, coping, and social support) with a conceptual framework developed within the context of the interrelationship between the concepts. The instrumentation for the study the Family Crisis Oriented Personal Scales (F-COPES), the Derogatis Stress Profile, and the Tilden Interpersonal Relationship Inventory. The design for the study is a three-group interrupted time series with interventions implemented monthly and with measures made upon entry into the study, at 6 months, and at 12 months. A total sample of 90 is projected over a 4-year period with 30 participants randomly assigned to the control group or to one of the two experimental groups. The participants will be obtained from special outreach programs for caregivers of AIDS children. The randomly assigned sample will be stratified by biological parents, biological grandparents, and foster parents. The data will be analyzed descriptively for the first two objectives; for the third, fourth, and fifth objectives, the data will be analyzed in accord with a multivariate approach (multiple analysis of variance [MANOVA] or multiple analysis of covariance [MANOVA]) in order to test for between group and between time differences.